...The Nike Sports Research Laboratory is a secretive area within the company’s sprawling headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, where scientists and designers work on new products, many of which never see the inside of a store. The whole purpose of this space, with its clandestine projects and NDA requirements, is to create interesting new things through repeated and creative failure.

Early in the summer of 2014, a handful of NSRL employees escaped from Beaverton to a resort in the town of Sisters to drum up new ideas. Matt Nurse, a tall, broad-shouldered former high school swimmer who leads the NSRL, was feeling bored and belligerent, and he told his colleagues that they weren’t taking enough risks. To inspire them, he played one of his favorite YouTube videos—a monologue by former Black Eyed Pea will.i.am: “Sometimes,” will.i.am says in the clip, “you have to put yourself in the situation to frig up … Anybody else who’s not going out there and risking messing up … they never get any bigger.”